


Finality

by narsus



Category: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-20
Updated: 2012-05-20
Packaged: 2017-11-05 17:08:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/408908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narsus/pseuds/narsus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their final conversation isn’t really much of a conversation at all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Finality

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy belongs to John le Carré, StudioCanal and Working Title Films.

Peter’s actually grateful to George that it’s tonight of all nights when it all has to end. Of course he hasn’t told Richard what it is that he actually does, but he’s come close from time to time. Recently, the urge to tell Richard everything, or at least as much of everything as Richard will understand, has been overwhelming. He’s actually tried to start that conversation several times already, only to be interrupted, stalled by his own inability to carry on. He’d wanted, desperately, for Richard to know to truth, some fair portion of it that wouldn’t have Richard running for the hills at Peter’s apparent delusions of his own importance.

It’s only now, making his way home in the darkness that it occurs to Peter that it could have been a simple conversation after all. He could have blurted it out, plainly, simply, on any number of occasions. Maybe not quite while they’d been in bed but at any other time in between. It would have been something to say, on a Sunday morning, over tea and toast and the Times crossword. The Times crossword that, for all his extensive cipher training, always baffles Peter entirely. Richard had been forever bemused by Peter’s inability to make neither head nor tail of the matter. It had allowed Peter to cultivate an attitude of defencelessness. Without aptitude and knowledge, in such spheres, Richard saw him as vulnerable.

It’s been an easy game to play. A pantomime of being foolish and, perhaps, a little bit simple. High-minded men like Richard presumed a benign superiority in situations like that almost automatically. Truthfully, Peter has never minded it. It’s a relief to not have to live up to anybody’s ideals in moments like that. To be able to let go of any anxiety or terror at not quite living up to what he’s expected to. He doesn’t have to be smart or competent or witty when Richard is around. Richard is the academic: the studious, intelligent, educator of future generations. When they’re together, Peter need do no more than smile sweetly and curl himself up against Richard’s side. He doesn’t have to be strong anymore, not with Richard to protect him.

Soon all that will be gone. Ended. After what he has to do there will be no more comfort or self-indulgent helplessness. He will be alone, and nobody will want to protect him ever again. Peter isn’t fool enough to find any comfort in that. Self-sufficiency is what he has been trained for but sometimes, dear God, sometimes he just wants to be able to rest. Richard had given him that small respite he so required and now, because the world isn’t fair, because deserve has never been an operating principle of the universe, he will lose that too. He must have the awkward conversation that he’s always avoided, but awkward for an entirely different reason. Damn George and his reason, damn him and his unhallowed, irrefutable, purpose.

Even now, alone in the darkness, while the street lights whistle past, Peter is left with his own painful solutions rattling around in his own head. He has to end this but it’s been left entirely in his, hideously self-sufficient, hands to come up with the mechanism. He has to come up with suitable lies, suitable avoidant gestures and empty stares. He has to be the one to drive Richard away. And now, of all the stupid times for it, he wants to be entirely, unreservedly honest with Richard. He wants to say that he’s sorry, that it’s beyond his control, that, if there’s any mercy in this godforsaken world, he will try to come back. He wants to lay himself bare, at Richard’s mercy, and hope beyond anything he might ever deserve, that Richard is a kind man.

On the steps, pausing to unlock the front door, of course all his fine schemes turn to dust. He can’t tell Richard a thing, even if Richard would understand. He can’t risk putting somebody else’s life on the line. He can’t trust that he could keep either of them safe or that, realistically, he could ever come back. What kind of man would it make him to leave Richard waiting, perhaps indefinitely? No, it must be a clean cut, a surgical removal of everything he wishes he could, so desperately, cling to. He can’t risk even hinting that he does this with regret. He doesn’t dare. There will be no fond farewells or tender embraces. He cannot risk pressing his lips to Richard’s and whispering, through his tears, that he is so very sorry. Richard’s life, his happiness, cannot be so selfishly sacrificed on the altar of Peter’s boyish fantasies.

Richard is sitting at the kitchen table, tending to the business of education, when Peter finds him. Head bent low over his paperwork, the thinning of Richard’s dark hair is apparent. His older, worn, form bent at careful angles over his work. He is everything that Peter desires, a sharp contrast to everything that Peter, himself, is. Peter is well aware of his weakness for older men, it’s probably, buried deep down, a contributing factor to his trust in Smiley too. Older, stable, knowledgeable men who don’t mind when he is foolish or weak. Father figures in a sense. A replacement for schoolmasters and tutors who thought him precocious. Richard is a schoolmaster after all, and his authoritative tone permeates all his actions. His gentle, high handed, teasing is something that Peter is glad of, no matter how much his rational mind suggests that he ought to examine that attitude. It’s a trade-off between self-respect and the illusion of safety, and he long ago decided that he’d rather be thought a fool, and loved, than perceived to be too self-sufficient to ever need anybody’s care. But now, at last, he must pretend otherwise.

“What is it, love?”

Richard’s tone is gentle. Staring at him Peter notices, for the first time, that the whole picture, the lines carved deep into Richard’s face, the crow’s feet, the telltale pull of skin at the corner of his mouth, the sag of his jowls, paints a picture of concern and perpetual worry. Has Richard always looked like this? He doesn’t know, he certainly doesn’t recall his lover looking anything but confident.

“I need you to leave.”

He expects an argument, harsh words, angry, physical threats. Instead Richard sighs, stands up slowly, and then begins to move towards him. His hand is almost at Peter’s elbow before Peter finds his voice again.

“Don’t touch me!”

Peter shrinks away, against the wall, unable to meet Richard’s gaze. He wants so desperately to throw himself into Richard’s arms, to break down in tears and promise Richard anything, absolutely anything, if only he’ll stay, but he can’t do any of those things. He has to convince Richard that he wants him gone, that he’d be glad of Richard’s departure.

“Just leave. I don’t want this anymore.”  
“Peter?”  
“Not with you.”

That does it at last. For a moment everything stands still and then Richard is moving to gather up his work off the kitchen table and moving past Peter into the bedroom. It’s all unravelling, every last thread of anything that Peter has tried to grasp for himself. After this there will be nothing but duty to sustain him. A duty that he’s not even sure he believes in anymore. Richard will never suspect why Peter is doing this, that it’s all a matter of Queen and country, instead of the foolish whim of a silly boy. That’s the way that it must be, Richard never suspecting that what Peter does is far more dangerous than file papers and make tea. It’s enough to make Peter glad now, that he never shared even the inkling of the truth, that he’s lied, always, and allowed Richard to make up a truth that will never apply to him. It’s made everything so much easier, so much more painful, and after today Peter will have to be all the more self-sufficient. The door closes, quietly, on Richard’s departure. Duty done. Tomorrow will be another day, but tonight, for the last time, at least Peter will have the comfort of being free to weep over his own misery.


End file.
